Further
by Machina Maw
Summary: But what about me? I'm the one who had to watch you wilt away. [ Axel x Marluxia ]
1. The Friday Night Ritual

**Since you have opened this:** I'd like to thank you for taking the time to read my story.

I sincerely hope you enjoy reading this, as much as I enjoy imagining that you do :).

**Warning:** This story will contain (or may contain) strong themes (that is, fully or partially depicted scenes)

of yaoi, drugs, sex (lemon/lime), and perhaps violence. If you don't like the idea of reading such a story, then please don't,

for your own sake as well as mine. (If you don't know the meaning of yaoi, I don't strongly suggest that you read this, either.)

**If you feel** that I have spelled something incorrectly, it most likely be because I am Australian, and spelling things in the

Australian way. If you find any grammatical errors, I apologise, and please let me know so I may change them.

**Lastly:** Reviews would be much appreciated:) Tell me what you love, what you're not so hot about; be honest. I'd be very grateful

for any constructive criticism and advice, but please be nice (or at least tactful) about it.

Enough rambling please enjoy!

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Demyx raised his glass in a toast – "Here's to being the best," he said loudly, narrowing his eyes: his best 'Tough' voice clearly belying his 'Utterly Hammered' voice. Beside him, Axel half-laughed; for he was not yet drunk enough to join in the alchohol-induced daze and pointless laughter. He did, however, clink his glass to Demyx's, and downed the remainder of his pint. Demyx giggled and moved his own glass to his lips, inadvertently sloshing brightly coloured drink past his open mouth and down his front. He gasped loudly, and then set the glass down on the bar and erupted in a fit of laughter, trying to wipe the liquid off his front with his sleeves, through a haze of laughter-induced tears. "Oh my Jesus," Demyx gasped through the laughter, wiping his eyes with his palms. "I think I'm dying," he added, shuddering with mirth. His dirty blonde hair, cut and styled in a most peculiar mohawk-like fashion, fell over his clear turquoise-blue eyes; set in a pale and pointed face. Demyx was slight in build, almost womanly, and he played up his willowy frame by wearing clinging clothes that accentuated his small form – his choice tonight was a simple dark-green turtleneck sweater over skinny-legged black jeans and brown boots. His long, pale fingers, adorned with silver rings, peeked out from his sweater sleeves and toyed with the glass infront of him.

"You're not dying, Dem," Axel said impatiently, and motioned for the bartender to bring him another beer. He could never understand why his closest friend chose to ingest alchohol in the form of girly, pastel-hued and smoothie-like beverages with indecipherable names. Axel recalled, with a slight smirk, how months ago he had chastised Demyx for his choice in alchoholic drinks, saying that he didn't know how anyone could drink them without gagging. "But they're so cold… and fruity," Demyx had whined, pouting adorably, and Axel had responded with, "Exactly – like a gay eskimo." Demyx had fallen over in a bout of hysterical laughter, clutching his stomach and gasping for air (he tended to do that quite a bit when he was tipsy). But it wouldn't have mattered if Demyx's choice of drink was watered-down camel piss – he was just so bubbly and excitable that you _had_ to love him, with all his quirks included – including his near-disturbing obsession with horoscopes – "Axel, even if you _won't_ remind me what your birthday is, I _know_ you're a Leo!" – and his hopeless devotion to Disney movies, and his unsurpassed adoration of… cheesy 90's pop bands. More often than not, Axel would show up at Demyx's apartment, finding the front door unlocked and Demyx himself dancing infront of the mirror in a bath towel singing in a scratchy, off-key voice to Aqua or the Spice Girls.

Axel couldn't remember a time when he and Demyx hadn't been best friends. It had been the same since kindergaten – 'together forever' seemed to be their unspoken motto. Demyx had always been there. A shoulder to lean on (Axel never cried), a hand to hold, a number to dial. He'd always been ready and willing to support Axel when his dysfunctional 'relationships' came to a quick end – as they all did. Axel was not exactly suited for the word 'boyfriend' – his attention span, especially when it came to possible partners, was excruciatingly short. Often he would end up taking some boy (or, less often, a girl) home and being sure, as he woke the next morning, that he was 'The One'. After two hours of his company and a badly-made breakfast, Axel was ready to throttle the other. He would send them on their way, as he sent them all, with the promise of a phone call – which of course, he never did. During his highschool years, Axel had often been sleeping with two or more people at a time (not simultaneously, of course – he wasn't into group sex), and had gained the title of 'player' with some and 'pimp' with others. Didn't bother him either way – what was one more jealous boy or heartbroken girl? He was searching for his own happiness, and if that made him a slut, then so be it. And if other people got hurt in the meanwhile, that wasn't his fault, either, he told himself.

Tonight, however, he was not looking for romantic company. It was the night for a celebratory drinking ritual that Axel and Demyx participated in every Friday, to rejoice in the end of the working week and, if all was going well, the paycheck they might have received for a recent gig. Typically, they would be joined by the other member of their band: the young Roxas; who for all his skill at the drums was but high school senior, and so was required to partake in all those tedious highschool things such as taking exams and studying. It was also not uncommon for the trio to be joined by their somewhat eccentric yet ever-cheery manager, Saïx. However, both the other members of the quartet were absent, leaving Axel and Demyx to get happily plastered at a local bar which both were quite familiar with. Axel, anyway, had sworn off relationships – he hadn't had sex in three weeks, which must be some kind of record, he mused. For _him_ it was a record, though – he never seemed to have any trouble finding some unsuspecting doe-eyed pretty boy to pick up. They were all drawn to him; first to his vibrantly red and outrageously spiked hair and his deep jade eyes, his facial tattoos and his lean body; and then to his personality – at times arrogant and egotistical, yet charming, outgoing, and loud. He _was_ a nice guy, but very few people had ever seen that far past his proverbial armour.

Here, their Friday Night Ritual, was usually where and when Axel would drink too much beer and then drag either Demyx, Roxas or Saïx – or all three – around the club and loudly engage in conversation with strangers, almost always beginning by stating some unusual fact or, in some cases, his opinion. One of the most memorable Friday Night Rituals they had ever had was when Axel had broke his own personal record for drinking – nineteen beers (cost him a damn fortune) – and boldly approached a large, intimidating man who was no shorter than 6'6" (only three inches more than Axel himself) and no younger than 40, dressed in jeans, motorcycle boots and a tight, sweat-stained Metallica t-shirt. Axel had promptly stopped before the man, whose mouth curled into a sneer under the bushy brown Chopper-style handlebar moustache that covered most of his lower face. "Metallica sucks ass," Axel announced loudly and with aplomb, to the entire bar, who had fallen silent at the sight of an excessively large and muscled man rising from his seat to glower at the red-headed demon before him.

"What'chu gonna do about it, boy?" the man had growled, and spat through a gap in his teeth onto the floor at Axel's feet. "You damn girly-looking poofter" – he pronounced it 'poofe-ter' – "I ought ter give you a damn good hiding." Axel, swaying slightly on his feet out of drunkenness, had laughed, then poked the man in the stomach. "You are fat and old," he said matter-of-factly, "And if you wanted to hurt me you would have to catch me first. Everyone knows fat people can't run, so unless I ran down a hill and you decided to roll avalanche-style after me, you would never catch me." With that he turned and walked away, lighting a cigarette, impervious to the shocked silence that had befallen the Metallica-shirt-wearing-man's table. "C'mon boys, let's roll!" the man had roared to his similarly dressed posse, clearly oblivious that he was in fact insulting himself, and Axel had burst into hysterical laughter. To cut a long story short – the rest of the night had involved the parking lot, half a deck of cards, a rather large dirt clod and a discarded shoe.

For Axel tonight, however, their weekly ritual seemed slightly stale. It had been the same for as long as he could remember – ever since he and Demyx, fresh out of job ideas and almost a year out of high school – had formed the band. Axel sighed and lit a cigarette, momentarily distracted from the barrage of words flying from his drunk friend's mouth. "Why – why aren't you – Axel… hey, Axel!" Demyx called, cupping his hands around Axel's ear and yelling. "Axxxellllll…….!" Annoyed, the red-head batted his friend's hands away. Demyx had a hard-done-by look on his face. "Why aren't you talking?" he said, pouting; the piteous effect somewhat lost in the fact that he had a tiny umbrella stuck in his hair. Axel snorted and pulled out said umbrella, twirling it in his fingers. "Just thinking," he grinned at his friend, then raised the beer to his lips and took a deep swig – "Ahh, Fridays. Gettin' paid and gettin' laid – that's all I need!" he exclaimed, and winked at the blonde-haired boy beside him, laughing aloud at the astounded look on the small guitarist's face. "But what about your pact thing? You said – " Demyx started.  
"I was only joking," Axel cut him off midsentence, and grinned at his friend. "Don't be such an arse."

"Ohmgod!" Demyx squealed suddenly, slurring his exclamation, and grabbed Axel by the hands.  
" 'Ohmgod' what?" Axel mimicked, but his friend was already talking over him, eyes wide with excitement.   
"Holy shit Ax, what an awesome idea!" he broke off into a giggling fit. "We got paid – now let's get laid! I mean, not laid, ass! Paylaid! Uh… waylaid? I mean – Axel, hurry up!"

"What the fuck – " Axel hadn't gotten the words out of his mouth before he found himself being dragged out the front door of the bar, beer left behind, by an overzealous five-foot-eight blonde guitarist. Said blonde guitarist pushed Axel into a waiting taxi and climbed in beside him, then disjointedly recited an address to the driver, somewhere that Axel didn't recognise. Thankfully, the taxi driver was fluent in Incoherent Drunk and started off down the road. Axel turned, confused, to Demyx. "Where are we going?"

Demyx just grinned and winked. "You'll see."


	2. But it's Better if You Do

Neon lights, bright and blinking. Pink everywhere – burning Axel's unfocused eyes in the dark and the stagelights around him; polished wood underfoot, scarred and chipped with years of use. There was a faint, musky odour – something very familiar that didn't register at first with Axel's rather alchohol-saturated brain. He blinked several times, screwing his eyes closed and bringing up a hand to shade his sight. He realised he must have passed out in the taxi, and was now standing somehow in a very unfamiliar place, Demyx nowhere to be seen.

Axel could hear people all around him, male voices mainly, loud and boisterous and roaring laughter, punctuated here and there with softer feminine murmurs and slight giggles. His eyes slid into focus suddenly, and through the dim lights that ringed the walls he could make out that he was in a very large room, filled with corner booths and a catwalk-style stage centered against the back wall. A bar jutted out in an oval shape from the wall on the right, a stunning variety of alchohol displayed in racks and cases behind the bar counter. There were many people here – he was vaguely aware of people brushing past him, but he was too dumbfounded for the moment to do anything about it.

Before he could turn his head to try and locate the lost Demyx, all the lights dimmed and the background noise dulled to a low murmur. A large sign over the stage blinked into life: _The Cathouse_; it read, and a slow realisation dawned on Axel. A sudden movement onstage brought him back to his senses, and he grinned, inwardly congratulating himself for having somehow – he couldn't quite remember _exactly_ how – he had given Demyx the idea to ditch the usual club for a night at a strip joint. He slid into an unoccupied booth in the far right corner of the room, where he could see the stage from his shadowed and secluded spot.

Music began to play – some kind of techno-ish, electropop song that Axel didn't recognise, not being an avid fan of that particular type of music. It had a kind of muted buzz to it, a beat starting low and climbing to crescendo. And in time to that beat, a slim-legged form was making its way onstage, hips rolling in time. The form – a strikingly lovely female, all legs and skin and curled red hair – stepped into the spotlight at the front of the catwalk, and as the vocals kicked in, she began a gracefully seductive routine; sensuously shedding her clothing like snakeskin. _Before you go and leave this town, I want to see you one more time. Put your dirty angel face between my legs and knickerlace… __Fight me, try me, kiss me like you like me; twist it round again and again…_

Axel found himself bobbing his head to the song, but it ended too soon and the girl left the stage. The lights came back on and Axel, forgetting about the girl's slinky routine, scanned the bar for Demyx, unaware that the very blonde boy he was looking for was sliding into the booth beside him, a sly grin lighting up his pointed face. He dropped down beside Axel and planted a light kiss on his friend's cheek. Axel jumped. "Wha – What the hell, where were _you_?" he queried sulkily. "You left me all alone." He fixed his eyes on Demyx's in an ersatz glare. Demyx fluttered his eyelids innocently, and grinned again.

"Isn't this place _cool_?" he gushed, and Axel stared at him in surprise.  
"What? This is a _strip joint_, Dem. Incase you haven't noticed, they're all females. May I remind you that you haven't been interested in females since fourth grade?"

"Aha, that's where you're wrong, my ever-unobservant companion. Notice," Demyx replied, and pointed across the room where a man no older than 30 was sitting back in his seat, captivated by the slim and long-haired but obviously male stripper twining himself round a silver pole on the tabletop. "They cater for everyone here," Demyx said cheerily, and then furrowed his brow. "Well, not everyone, I guess. I mean, there's always – " he stopped short, staring wide-eyed at someone across the room. "Oh my god," he breathed, "Is that –?"  
"What? Who, where – ?" Axel asked impatiently, twisting around to try and see what Demyx was staring at.  
"No way," Demyx said, slightly louder, "I always thought – but then – "  
"Tell me, tell me!" Axel whined, his curiosity getting the better of him. "What the hell is so fascinating?"

But Demyx, without a word, was hurriedly deserting his seat and heading in a beeline for the opposite side of the room. "Demyx! Where are you going?" Axel called exasperatedly, but Demyx only called back in a sing-song voice, for the second time that night:  
"You'll see!"

Axel fidgeted as he watched his friend heading towards the other side of the room. He could feel the effects of the alchohol wearing off, and fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette to otherwise calm him, apprehensive of what was in store for him now. He lit it, flicking at his near-empty lighter several times before it sparked, and when he looked up Demyx was completely out of sight, somewhere in the crowd at the opposite corner of the club. He let out a dejected sigh and slumped back in his seat, drawing deeply on the cigarette and exhaling in a cloud of thick white smoke. When the haze cleared, there was a Cathouse working girl standing before him, head bowed slightly in an unusually meek manner. "I was paid to perform for you," a quiet voice said, and Axel realised that the girl was speaking, to _him_ nonetheless. There was something eerily familiar about the voice – something similar to a vague sense of déjà vu, but not quite the same. Infact, there was something familiar about the whole personage.

Axel ground his cigarette out in the dirty glass ashtray and leaned forward to study the other – the most striking thing about her was her extremely pale skin and thin figure, accentuated by her clothing: tightly clinging leather pants over laced black boots, with a shawl-like garment hanging from her slender shoulders, secured by suspender-like straps buckled either side of her navel. Her face was hidden beneath a mass of soft, fluffy hair – a strange hue caught somewhere between pale pink and chestnut brown, or maybe it was just the lights – but _where_ had he seen that colour before? Axel blinked twice, trying to put his proverbial finger on what made him feel so uneasy. Certainly, it was not the fact that he was about to be given a show by a stripper – he'd been in that situation before, and never had he felt so uncomfortable about it. Maybe it had something to do with her gender: but then, she couldn't help being female, and did it really matter if Axel had almost no interest whatsoever in the opposite sex? A stripper is a stripper, after all. He looked over her again, taking in every detail, and slowly he began to put two and two together in his mind: the lack of breasts, the waistless figure, the long, slender fingers. She was – she was…

Unused to the silence, the stripper looked up slowly – deep blue eyes meeting Axel's own piercing green – and in that moment, it all clicked into place.

"Marluxia!" Axel gasped.

Axel sank back into his seat in astonishment. The stripper who he had so easily mistaken for female stood straight up now in alarm, eyes wide with sudden panic. Thoughts were rapidly racing through Axel's mind, intertwined with some disjointed memories: Here before him stood a boy not a year older than himself, a boy whose face Axel recognised from high school. Marluxia had always been guarded, withdrawn – he never offered answers in class or drew attention to himself, yet was adored by all the teachers for his quiet intelligence, and so had remained friendless during the four years of highschool. He had often been teased – sometimes by Axel himself – but had never retaliated. After receiving top marks in every subject and graduating, everyone who cared enough to think about it had assumed that he would go on to college and become _someone _important. And now, here stood that same boy before him, clad in provocative sleaze and scraping the barrel-bottom for money in a strip joint in the grimy downtown districts.

Axel opened his mouth to speak, yet with no idea what to say. "Marluxia – "  
"I – I must go," Marluxia stammered, his eyes frightened and ashamed, and turned on his heel to escape, disappearing into the throng of people crowding the club. Hardly believing what he had just seen, Axel burned with astonishment and pity. Admittedly, he had never been exactly nice to the boy – hardly giving him a second thought, save for when he joined in teasing him when they were both in their freshman year. But seeing him here, entertaining leering middle-aged men in a sleazy cabaret for a living, he didn't seem to remember that he had never cared for the other. It hit him suddenly that Demyx must have recognised Marluxia from across the room and sent him over as a joke, no doubt expecting to stand to one side laughing at Axel's misfortune and astonishment. Axel growled, and leapt from his seat, scanning the club for the mess of pink hair that signified the whereabouts of Marluxia. Perhaps it was curiosity, or perhaps it was pity, that spurred him to want to find him.

When his efforts proved fruitless, he left his seat altogether and did a thorough round of the club, although this too met with failure. He supposed Marluxia could have been hidden in a back room somewhere – whatever the case, he soon gave up after a good ten minutes of unsuccessful searching. The sight of an old schoolmate working as a stripper had deterred him from settling back down and enjoying himself, as he usually would have, as well as the fact that he was annoyed at Demyx for playing an unnecessarily cruel prank. Thoroughly put off, he left the club and lit a cigarette, letting it rest between his lips as he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket, and just stood for a while, musing and smoking the cigarette down to the filter. Flicking away the butt, he checked his wallet, finding himself thoroughly broke. He couldn't catch a cab now – for the only access to his bank account, his key card; was safely back home at his apartment. Axel had vowed to never have such free access to large amounts of money during his Friday Night Ritual again; ever since the night where he had wound up, along with Demyx and Roxas, at Saïx's house: thoroughly drunk and surrounded by hired strippers, a small greenhouse worth of pot, and the cumulative crusts of five extra large deep-pan pepperoni pizzas. Axel sighed and stretched, not looking forward to the long walk home.

Axel had been walking for a good half hour on the deserted downtown streets before finally catching sight of some other people. A group of men, all in their twenties and dressed in dark, baggy clothing, were crowded in a circle on the opposite side of the road from Axel. He didn't particularly want to be caught up in any late-night gangster affairs in a 'rough' part of town, but curiosity, as it usually did, got the better of him and he slowed his pace. The men had not seen Axel – the night sky was covered entirely in thick grey cloud, blotting out the moon, and the streetlights were few and far between, and almost all were broken or dysfunctional. The men were, instead, laughing and jeering, seemingly at something in the middle of the circle. "Come on, baby. Don't you wanna have some fun?" one of them leered, and the rest of the group laughed uproariously. "No, don't - !" Axel heard a voice, and the men all took a step back, laughing cruelly in unison as their victim fell. Wondering if he should get involved, Axel stopped, and under the guise of lighting a cigarette he watched and listened closely.

He could see that one of the men, the same who had spoken before and presumably their leader, was holding tightly onto someone – the victim. He clutched tightly to his hostage and laughed as the prisoner struggled to break free. The captive suddenly began to beat at the ringleader with clenched fists, and instantly the laughter stopped and his voice became a low growl. "Don't be like that now," he said menacingly. "Don't act like you don't want me. Oh – you don't, do you? Well, I'll teach _you_ to be a fucking tease." He let go and their victim once more fell to the ground. At the same time, one of the guys in the circle shifted and moved away from his position, allowing Axel to see who they were tormenting: staring up at the leader with wide and frightened eyes was Marluxia.

Axel cursed under his breath, indecision clouding his mind. _I really should help_, he thought, and then countered himself, _but why? I don't owe him shit. _He was arguing inwardly with himself, back and forth. _Wouldn't you like to be helped in that situation?_ He asked himself, and then straightaway thought, _I wouldn't be stupid enough to get myself _into_ that situation_. And he made up his mind that he was going to walk away, unnoticed. He turned to leave – and all would have gone perfectly to plan if Marluxia had not, at that exact moment, looked past the circle of gangsters and straight into the startled green eyes of Axel himself.

Then Marluxia's eyes flicked away again, as he struggled to free himself from the grip of the thug's leader, who had bent to grasp his arm and drag him to his feet. Axel, with a sinking feeling in his stomach (but was it guilt or fear?) slowly crossed the street. The circle parted as he approached, and he stopped, hands in pockets, and sized them all up – he could probably take them in a fight, if it came to it, he supposed. Or else he could turn and run, and gamble on the hope that they would trip on the hems of their excessively baggy pants and fall. Unmoving, he lowered his gaze to meet Marluxia's. "Hey," he said uncertainly, and Marluxia's eyes flickered to the face of the man who gripped his arm, and back to Axel's. He hesitated, then spoke. "Hey," he replied quietly.

The leader glared at Axel for a good length of time, silently challenging him to say something. Axel remained silent, staring back coolly, and the other finally released Marluxia from his grip. He turned to his posse. "Let's go," He commanded, skulking off down the street, and they followed him without so much as a backwards glance; leaving Axel and Marluxia with their own uncomfortable silence. Axel cleared his throat and turned to Marluxia, who met his gaze and nodded his head almost imperceptibly before hastily lowering his eyes once more. "Cigarette?" Axel offered awkwardly, lighting his own with his free hand. Marluxia accepted, and Axel lit it for him, the smaller boy's face momentarily visible in the light from the flame – "You're bleeding," Axel murmured, looking at the scratches on the other's face. Marluxia slowly raised one pale, slender-fingered hand to his face and gingerly touched the shallow wounds. The pressure from his touch on the worst of the cuts caused the thin film of caked blood to break, and blood beaded at the edges. As if it had been triggered by Marluxia's movement, a rumble of thunder sounded in the distance and the clouds above them broke, sending a steady rain down to drench them.

Axel turned to Marluxia. Both their cigarettes had gone out, hanging limp and waterlogged from their hands. Marluxia was still, held in a stance akin to something from a soap opera: his head was tilted back to the sky, eyes closed, and his hair hung in damp strands past his shoulders, drops of water rolling off them. His pale face was streaked with pink as the rainwater washed the blood from his cuts, and his hands were held outwards at chest level, palms cupped to catch the falling water, the ruined fag nestled between the middle and index finger of his right hand. Axel stared – there was something deeply transfixing about the cliché pose the other held, and Axel wondered, as his breath caught in his throat, how he could have ever thought of leaving such a fragile and defenceless creature to the mercy of a bunch of thugs.

Marluxia opened his eyes and gave Axel a slow, dreamy smile. _Seductive. That's what it is_ _– _ Axel thought, and immediately chastised himself: _Of course it is. He's a stripper_. The moment passed, and Axel pushed it out of his thoughts. "C'mon. Let's go," he said softly, and Marluxia nodded. They walked side by side through the rain, towards home.


	3. Drunken Lullabies

Axel and Marluxia had been walking in silence for a good twenty minutes before either of them spoke. The pouring rain had slowed to a steady drizzle, and Marluxia had begun to shiver from the cold, despite his best efforts to conserve his warmth by wrapping his arms around his torso, hands in his armpits. "You're cold," Axel noted, and felt a stab of selfishness as he realised that while he himself was wrapped up in a warm coat, Marluxia's bare arms, shoulders and midriff were exposed to the chilly rain. He awkwardly shrugged off his jacket and hung it over Marluxia's shoulders. It hung off him, ridiculously large for his small frame. Marluxia looked up, surprised. "You don't have to – " he said, but Axel cut him off.  
"No, you wear it. It was getting too hot anyway." He looked around, relieved that he recognised the neighbourhood, and he noticed that they had stopped on a street only a few blocks from his apartment. "It's not far to my place," he said, almost to himself, and motioned for Marluxia to follow him. Marluxia hesitated, then pulled Axel's jacket tighter around him and followed at a slower pace than before.

A short time later, Axel stopped on the street infront of a great, hulking redbrick building – his apartment block. He looked up affectionately at it, then turned to Marluxia, who stood clutching Axel's jacket around himself, eyes downcast. "If you want, you can come in and uh, I can give you a towel or something so you can dry off, then I can drive you home…" he trailed off, and Marluxia kept his eyes fixed pointedly on the wet concrete underfoot. "Where do you live?" Axel asked, and a slow flush crept up Marluxia's neck and covered his face.  
"I… well, I…" he faltered, and blushed even more, refusing to meet Axel's eyes. Axel, however, caught on to his stuttering with a sharp pang of pity, mingled with slight horror. Marluxia was homeless! But then where did he sleep at night? How did someone like him wind up working in a strip joint and living on the streets, or if he could, staying the night at a stranger's house in exchange for sex? Axel knew what it was like to be poor: he himself lived off his band's profits and the quarter-yearly support payment from his parents, and occasionally he needed to take money from his bank savings account – but he could only imagine what it was like to have no home to go to, sleeping in a dirty alleyway downtown or in a stranger's bed every second night.

"On second thoughts… no worries. You can stay here tonight," he said kindly as he could, and Marluxia nodded shamefacedly, and followed Axel silently up the concrete stairwell. Axel stopped infront of a wooden door marked _VIII_ and began rifling through his pockets for his keys – the numerals on the door were painted black and bolted on carelessly; so that the numbers were not entirely juxtaposed, and the face of the door to which they were attached was rough, the cream paint chipping and flaking off all over. Axel found his keys and drew them from the back pocket of his jeans: Marluxia stared, amused, at the cutesy Hello Kitty keyring he held. Axel fitted a key into the door lock, twisted it, rattled the door handle a few times with his other hand and then bumped the door open with his shoulder. "It gets stuck," he said to Marluxia, and held the door open for him.

Marluxia stepped into Axel's apartment and looked around. A wide, beige-tiled hallway stretched out for a few metres before him, presumably leading to the bedroom, laundry and bathroom. He stepped cautiously down the hallway and turned through the door frame on the right. Axel had closed the front door and now he brushed past Marluxia, flicking on light switches as he went. Now able to see, Marluxia studied the room – Axel's living room: It was covered in an almost threadbare cream-coloured carpet, with two almost identical old couches occupying most of the room; each splaying outwards along a wall from the corner of the room closest to the front door. An old television set sat on a stand on the far wall, surrounded by the tangled black cords from several out-of-date gaming consoles. Next to the television was a long, narrow table along the wall, on which sat an ancient stereo, a table phone, a small fishbowl and a cage half-covered by the old towel that had been thrown over it. Oddly, there was a cluster of black balloons tied with red string in the corner near the narrow table. To complete the room; a battered hardwood coffee table stood on four squat legs in the middle of the room, its polished surface chipped, scorched, scarred and cluttered – cans of beer, three brimming ashtrays, several battered books, a tower of CDs, two stained coffee mugs, a coke-bottle-and-hose-pipe bong and a sketchbook all crowded on top of the table. In the far left corner of the room was a small kitchenette, marked by the dirty rectangle of linoleum on the floor and the bar-like counter that separated the kitchenette from the main part of the living room. Marluxia could see that a small fridge and stove were jammed in between the spaces of kitchen cupboards. Two high old wooden chairs, of similar make to the coffee table, sat facing the kitchen counter, seemingly where Axel ate most of his meals. _Or perhaps not_, Marluxia thought, glancing again at the coffee table.

Marluxia sat down on the edge of one of the couches. It was made of a sickly-coloured orange vinyl, and was ripped in places so that the pale greyish-green stuffing poked out, but Axel had thrown a soft old blanket over it to counter this. Axel was busying himself filling an old electric tea-kettle with water and cleaning out dirty mugs. "Coffee?" He asked Marluxia, who nodded, then Axel flicked the switch on the kettle and said, "Oh, I'll get you a towel," and left the room. Marluxia then took off Axel's wet coat, rather guiltily, and edged forward in his seat. He picked up a handful of novels and looked over them: they were all battered and dog-eared, some falling apart at the spines. He read the titles: _A Brief History of Time_, _Memoirs of a Geisha_, _The Magician's Nephew_, _Harry Potter_, _The Other Side of Midnight_… one book he flipped through and found a half-squashed cigarette inside. He absently squashed it back into shape as he put down the novels and picked up a handful of CDs. Some of them he recognised, but others were artists he had never heard of – _Trivium_, _Avenged Sevenfold_, _Skinny Puppy_, _Mindless Self Indulgence_, _Opeth_, _Windir_… the list went on.

When Axel returned to the living room with a towel, he found Marluxia sitting back on his couch smoking a cigarette placidly. Coffee forgotten, Axel took two cans of beer from the fridge and offered one to the bedraggled waif on his couch, along with the towel. Marluxia accepted the beer and effortlessly cracked it open. "What are the balloons for?" He asked, in that soft voice of his.

"Leftover from my birthday in August… you know, you should probably do something about those cuts," Axel said suddenly, studying the cuts on the other's face. Marluxia shrugged and muttered, "I'll be fine. They're superficial wounds." He sipped his beer to fill the silence and took a deep drag on his cigarette, then stubbed it out in an already full ashtray, set down his beer and began drying his hair with the towel. Axel watched, sipping his beer, and when Marluxia put down the towel and began to remove his top, Axel hurriedly sprang to his feet. "I'm putting on some music," he said gruffly, and slid a CD into the stereo.

Then he settled back down on the unoccupied couch and closed his eyes, letting the familiar music wash over him. _Leave your pain on the bedroom floor again, bring a smile to survive. And do you think that you have that in you? Take a chance 'cause I know you want to. If only you'll hold on, just hold on, I'm here and I'm with you, I'm here too, I feel you, we'll get through; I know this, I've seen it – a hundred times, a thousand times – just one more time, with you and I, I'll pull you close, and then we'll say goodbye…_ Axel was halfway through his second beer and beginning to sing along. "You should be in a band or something," Marluxia said, and Axel opened one eye to look at him. The other boy was sitting with his legs drawn up to his chest, facing Axel, one hand holding a beer and a cigarette simultaneously. He wasn't wearing a shirt, but the towel was draped over his shoulders. "I am," Axel said.  
"Oh. Well, you're good… you're a good singer."  
Axel shrugged, grinning. "Thanks." He groaned exaggeratedly as he rolled off the couch and headed to the kitchenette, returning with a lit cigarette in his mouth and a bottle of vodka. "Let's do shots."

Half an hour later, the two of them were good and sloshed, and Marluxia had, thanks to the alchohol, loosened up quite a bit. Axel had produced a joint and the two sat around in a cloud of marijuana smoke, talking and laughing about high school. Axel had never seen or heard Marluxia laugh, and it came as quite a surprise to him when he heard it first. Marluxia had a slow, sexy laugh that heated Axel's blood, and his smile was almost as good: those rosebud lips curving upwards at the sides, evoking a faint pair of dimples that made Axel delirious with pleasure – though he excused it as simply a side-effect of vodka and pot, choosing to ignore the nascent feelings stirring in him. Eventually their conversation turned away from highschool and they began to talk about music, books and the finer points of peeling a potato. At first Axel carefully avoided the questions that he really wanted the answers to – why was Marluxia working as a stripper? Why was Marluxia homeless? What had happened after he left highschool? – But soon the questions slipped from his mind, forgotten, and he focused on the stupid, disjointed conversation they were having. Axel was describing a scene from one of his favourite movies to Marluxia, who was talking about the time he got lost in the supermarket when he was a kid. Neither of them really cared that the other wasn't listening, and soon all their words stopped making sense and they lapsed back into taking vodka shots.

It was sometime around 2 in the morning when they finished the bottle of vodka, and just as well. "Tired," mumbled Marluxia, and he scrubbed at his face absently with the towel. "Sleep," he added, and Axel nodded. The room was swimming in his vision, and he stumbled stupidly into the hallway. He turned around to speak and saw that Marluxia had passed out on the couch, and then momentarily forgot what he was doing – ah, right. He stripped down in the hallway, leaving his clothes on the floor, and almost tripped over the bath mat as he got into the shower. He stood for a good ten minutes, leaning against the glass cubicle wall and letting the pelting drops of tepid water wash over him. When he felt sufficiently cold and slightly more sober, he turned off the water and stepped out onto the cold white-tiled floor of the bathroom, quickly drying himself with a towel and, shivering, he rummaged in the laundry basket for a pair of long, black sweatpants, pulling them on quickly. He was insanely tired, but forced himself to drink a glass of water before stumbling across the hallway to his bedroom.

Not bothering to turn on the light, he almost tripped on a stray boot by the doorway, and collapsed into his bed. He pulled the covers up to his chin and rolled over – discovering that, somehow, a very drunk, stoned and sleepy Marluxia had made his way down to Axel's room and crawled into his bed, and was now fast asleep. Too drunk and cold to care, he shifted closer and encircled Marluxia in his arms, pulling him near and burying his face in the mass of pinkish-brown hair that smelt like cinnamon and cigarettes, and he closed his eyes. The boy in his arms shifted slightly. "Axel?" Marluxia murmured, turning his head slightly. Axel grunted softly, and Marluxia whispered, "Thankyou."


	4. Black Balloon

Axel woke shivering on a bare mattress. The sheets from his bed had been stripped away, and the blankets lay in a pile on the floor. Confused and not entirely sober, Axel sat up. That was when the hangover hit him. He groaned and fell back onto his pillow, his head throbbing as if a psychotic black metal drummer had been let lose within. Then he remembered the dream he had been having – and his heart began to race. He dreamt that he had pinned Marluxia to his bed – straddled him and bitten and ravaged those shoulders – bruised that tender mouth with ardent kisses – they had shed their clothes in a frenzy of lust and Axel had entered him, and slid his hands down that body slick with desire, and Marluxia's cries of passion were still echoing in his ears as Axel violently came. It was so fresh and vivid in his mind that it almost seemed real. But then… Axel stared at the bare mattress and the pile of blankets on his floor, and he lurched out of bed hurriedly, his head reeling (not only from pain), and into the bathroom. Sitting atop of the laundry hamper were his bedsheets, crumpled into a ball. He picked the sheets up and spread them out in his hands and – there. The telltale signs. Axel stared wide-eyed, his heart in his throat, at the dried semen that stained the sheets. It hadn't been a dream: he and Marluxia had fucked.

So where was Marluxia? Cursing his stupidity, Axel realised Marluxia must have left while he, Axel, was still asleep. Aching with disappointment and grimacing with the pain in his head, Axel, desperate for coffee and panadol, headed towards the living room. And stopped. Sitting on the couch against the adjacent wall was Marluxia, dressed only in his tight leather pants. His head was bowed in concentration and he hadn't seen Axel – what was he doing? Axel leant against the door frame and watched in silence. Marluxia had cleared a space on the coffee table and set out a curious arrangement of objects infront of him, some of which seemed to have come from a small black zipper case, no doubt previously hidden in one of Marluxia's pockets. The others he had clearly picked up from around Axel's own house. Marluxia had set out a handful of cotton wool balls, last night's vodka bottle (with little more than a trickle of vodka still within), a charred and oddly-bent metal spoon, a tarnished silver Zippo lighter, a glass with a single icecube inside, a tic-tac box filled almost a quarter of the way with a white, clumpy substance Axel didn't recognise; a narrow, tapering cylindrical object he couldn't quite see, and last but not least, one of Axel's black balloons.

Axel had absolutely no idea as to how all these objects came together, but not wishing to disrupt whatever Marluxia had planned, he stayed still and silent. Marluxia unscrewed the cap from the vodka bottle and, holding a cotton wool ball over its neck, he upended it, soaking the cotton wool in vodka. Carefully, he wiped over his fingertips with it, then placed it aside and soaked another cotton wool ball with alchohol. He swabbed at the crook of his right arm and placed the ball aside, then repeated the vodka-dousing process, using the second-last cotton ball to wipe over the dish end of the spoon thoroughly. A sense of unease began to settle over Axel as he watched, but still he remained silent and observant. Marluxia set the vodka bottle aside and picked up the tic-tac box, holding the spoon in one hand. He removed the lid and gently took out one rather large clump, about the size of two tic-tacs themselves, with his thumb and forefinger. Axel could see his hands shaking slightly as he moved. He placed the white clump – Axel still had no idea as to what it was – in the dish end of the spoon, then he reached into the glass and removed the half-melted ice cube. With his right hand he gingerly held onto the bent spoon, curved forefinger supporting its bottom, then he slowly slid the icecube into the dish end of the spoon, using his left hand. Slowly, as not to spill any of the concoction held by the spoon, he picked up the Zippo lighter. He flicked it a few times before it finally sparked up with a _snick_ – and he held it to the bottom of the spoon, moving his right hand out of the way of the flame.

Something about the routine disturbed Axel deeply – it was flawlessly memorised, carried out to within a tenth of a millimetre to absolute perfection by plan. He hand been watching for less than five minutes, yet still Marluxia did not look up or sense another person in the room, so absorbed in this little ritual was he. Axel watched as Marluxia patiently ran the lighter under the base of the spoon, and the ice cube melted into water and fizzled slightly, the white substance dissolving completely. Marluxia held the spoon at eye level, squinting at it, then he quickly snapped the lighter shut and set it down, his hand scrabbling for the final cotton-wool ball. He snatched at it, then brought it to his mouth and tore it with his teeth. He took a torn sliver of the cotton wool from his lips and rolled at it with his left thumb and forefinger until it was a small, tightly-rolled ball. He lowered the spoon, so he could look down into it, and then rolled the small ball of cotton wool into the centre (careful, so as not to touch the liquid) where it swelled up, absorbing almost all the concoction from the spoon. Marluxia passed the spoon to his left hand, and with his free hand he picked up the tapering cylindrical object – and Axel realised with a shock that it was a hypodermic needle, a syringe. Alarm bells began to ring in his brain, but he could only watch, transfixed, as Marluxia, squinting in concentration, inserted the end of the needle into the middle of the swollen cotton ball and pulled back on the plunger, filling the hollow innards of the syringe with the clear substance from the spoon. When the syringe was entirely full and no liquid remained in the spoon, Marluxia set it down haphazardly on the coffee table. Far more carefully, he placed the syringe on its side next to the spoon, then reached for the black balloon.

Since all the balloons had been filled with helium, they floated easily and deflated slowly – it had been less than a month since they had been blown up, and this particular balloon was still hovering straight up, its neck tied tightly with red string, the end of which Marluxia had tied to a leg of the coffee table. Axel watched Marluxia as he picked up one of the discarded vodka-doused cotton buds and scrubbed again at the crook of his right arm, then threw the cotton ball away and devoted his attention to scrabbling at the tie of the balloon's string. The knot gave way easily and Marluxia grabbed at the string. With minimal evident difficulty he wound it around his right upper arm: once, twice; tight enough to cut into his skin. He clenched his arm to his side and used both hands to tie a knot in the string, securing it to his arm. The black balloon bobbed eerily above his head, strands of pink-brown hair clinging to it statically. Ritual at last complete, Marluxia picked up the syringe with his left hand, and bent his right arm. Without further dallying, he grazed the head of the needle over the crook of his arm and entered a vein in one smooth movement. He sighed, a sound that Axel could not further comprehend beyond simply that: a noise; and pressed down on the plunger. The syringe quickly emptied and Marluxia withdrew the needle and removed the tie that constricted his bloodflow. The balloon floated to the ceiling where it bounced sickly, red string fluttering behind it. Axel was silent.

Marluxia was singing quietly to himself as he tipped the needle, spoon and tic-tac box back into the black case, zipped it shut and slid it into a pocket of his pants. "_I am colour blind_…_ coffee black and egg white_._ Pull me out from inside_…_ I am ready, I am ready, I am ready, I am… hmm hmmm hmm…_" Marluxia scooped the sodden cotton balls into his hand and looked around for somewhere to dispose of them. Not finding anywhere, he instead headed to the window, pushed it open and threw the handful out. "_I am covered in skin… no one gets to come in. Pull me out from inside… I am folded, and unfolded, and unfolding, I am… colour blind…_"  
"Good morning."

Marluxia started guiltily and whirled around as Axel spoke. He was still leaning in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, expression blank. "Hi," Marluxia replied, and smiled shyly. Axel wondered for a moment whether he should say something about the scene he had just witnessed. But then he thought about it some more, and really, it was none of his goddamn business. None of his goddamn business that the boy he had allowed into his house, shared his alchohol with and then fucked in a stoned and drunken haze was shooting up heroin in his living room. None whatsoever. So he ignored it, he pushed it out of his mind and tried to pretend he hadn't seen it. He allowed his arms to slacken, and fall to his sides, and face twisted into a slight grimace. "Man, I am so hungover. Never again," he declared, "Will I get that utterly shit-faced."

Marluxia smiled. "I'm – I'm not so bad. I'm used to it I guess" – _Too right_, Axel thought bitterly – "Um, I could really do with some coffee though." Axel nodded in agreement, and walked into the kitchen, flicking the switch on the kettle and preparing two mugs of instant coffee. Marluxia had wandered over to the partially-covered cage on the table by the TV. He was bent over and peering into the cage. "What's in here?" he asked Axel softly, and Axel looked over.  
"Hmm? Oh." He grinned. "That is the home of my good friend Luka." Marluxia looked at Axel, eyebrows raised.  
"Um, your… friend?"  
Axel nodded eagerly, and abandoned the coffee cups. He pushed the towel away from the cage and opened a door in the top, then put most of his arm inside and removed a small, wriggling, black-and-white bundle. Marluxia recoiled slightly. "A mouse?"  
Axel frowned. "No, not a mouse. A rat." He beamed at the small creature sitting in his hand, and cooed. Then he placed the rat on his shoulder, and twirled its long tail round his forefinger. "His name is Luka," he said, and turned his head to nuzzle affectionately at the rat. Then the kettle boiled and Axel took the rat from his shoulder and thrust it into Marluxia's hands. "Hold him," he commanded, and Marluxia was left with a young rat grooming itself in his cupped hands. "Aren't – aren't they supposed to be really dirty?" Marluxia called uncertainly, and eyed Luka suspiciously. Axel felt a slight flash of anger. _You're one to talk about dirty. Where'd you get that syringe?_

But he kept his mouth firmly shut and carried the coffee over, placing it on the coffee table still wet with vodka. He took Luka from Marluxia and put him back in his cage, then took a seat on the unoccupied couch, taking up his mug and sipping. Bitter. Neither of them talked while they drank their coffee, and Axel's pounding headache slowly began to ebb away. Finally he turned to Marluxia. "So uh… how did you end up working at that Cathouse place?"  
Marluxia looked at him sharply, then turned away and shook his head. "I really don't want to say," he muttered darkly. So Axel pressed no further, and the silence returned, heavy and awkward. Axel hesitated, and finally said, "Last night – did we – ?"

Marluxia set down his coffee cup and stood up. "I have to go," he said distractedly, and Axel said,  
"You're not wearing a shirt."  
Marluxia looked down at his bare chest, mildly surprised. He sat down heavily and tugged off one of his boots, and pulled a crumpled black t-shirt from the toe. He smoothed it over his knee and then pulled it on. It looked too small for him at first, but then it settled on his form and clung tightly. Axel looked on in amusement. "You keep clothes in your shoe?"  
Marluxia shrugged. "Nowhere else to put it." He relaced his boot and stood up once more, not looking at Axel. "And… well, last night… I mean, we…" he trailed off, and then slowly raised his head to look Axel in the eye. "I'm sorry," he said shamefacedly, "I - "  
"What? I mean, no, don't be sorry. I was only asking, I couldn't remember everything," Axel interrupted, "I mean, you don't need to be sorry for it… oh, unless you thought that, like…" he trailed off, mind skipping ahead hurriedly. _What he hell could he be apologising for? Could he have assumed that I was only looking for a quick fuck? In exchange for a bed for the night? Or is it that…_  
"I… we… I thought that the only reason you allowed me to stay here was because you wanted something in return," Marluxia blurted out, blushing. "I'm… I'm sorry for assuming that _that_ was your motive. You've been so kind to me and demanded nothing in repayment. And you intervened when I was getting pushed around by those guys." He looked away. "Thankyou."

Then he was gone, leaving Axel to blink and wonder how he had managed to miss a slightly built pink-haired boy disappearing from his apartment.

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Gah. I have to apologise for this excruciatingly short chapter, I've hit a slow spot.  
Also, I'm back to school now, so probably won't get to write as much.  
However, things'll be back on track real soon. :)  
Lyrics in this chapter are from the song _Colourblind_.  
Next chapter will definitely be containing lemon... promise/warning.


	5. Black Balloon, Part II

My sincerest apologies for the lateness! I had no time to spellcheck or reread this, so I offer my sincerest apologies should you find any error. Sorry again!

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Saturday, band practice. Two till six, Demyx's house. Axel turned up around ten minutes late, Saïx answering the door. In the basement, Demyx was lovingly tuning his guitar and Roxas was lounging on a beat-up old couch, beating his drumsticks together happily. As Axel entered, Demyx looked up, caught sight of Axel and grinned an uncharacteristically mischeivious grin. "Have fun last night?"  
Axel growled at him, half-jokingly – "Ha ha ha… ha. How clever of you," he said, rolling his eyes. "You knew all along, didn't you?"  
"Of course," Demyx shrugged. "I couldn't let such a golden opportunity go to waste. Remember that time you told me that – "  
Axel cut him off. "Oi Demyx, that was a pretty damn harsh thing to do. What did Marluxia do to deserve it?"  
Demyx was starting to look uncomfortable. "Why are you being so uptight about it? Since when have you been the patron saint of practical joke victims?" Axel just glared as Demyx began to tease him. "Axel's got a cruuuush, Axel's got a cruuuush! Axel and Marly, sittin' in a tree, H-U-M-P-I-N-G!"

Roxas was laughing, but Saïx interjected, "Alright alright, let's all just settle down," and Axel looked at Demyx. Demyx put down his guitar, shrugged, and fluttered his eyelashes, making Axel bare his teeth. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry," Demyx huffed in a half-joking way, then suddenly bounded towards Axel and wrapped his thin arms around the redhead's neck, nuzzling his face in Axel's shoulder. "Let's never fight again, Axey!" he cooed, and Axel begrudgingly threw an arm over Demyx's shoulders.  
"You're forgiven," he said.  
"Good!" Demyx said cheerily, and bounded away once more to pick up his guitar.  
Axel wasn't _really_ mad at Demyx, it was more that fact that he had went out of his way to humiliate someone they had gone to school with. Of course, Axel had played his fair share of unnecessarily mean and uncalled-for jokes on Demyx (as well as many other people), so he didn't really have a reason to get so cut up about Demyx's little joke himself… in a way, he could even thank Demyx for setting him up.

Axel snapped out of his reverie. "I've been working on a new song," Demyx was saying, and he slung the guitar strap over his shoulders. He began to play as Axel turned and watched him; plucking the strings for a softly twanging song intro, which was quickly joined by Saïx strumming the backing chords on the antiquated acoustic that usually inhabited the dusty corner by the boxes full of outdated encyclopedias. Axel picked up the bass guitar on the couch, closed his eyes and listened to Demyx and Saïx's playing, and words began to flow out of his mouth almost unconsciously. "_Baby's black balloon makes her fly._" Axel sang softly, and bobbed his head in time, playing with the strings of Demyx's old bass, finding a sound that suited the song. "_I almost fell into that hole in your life. You weren't thinking 'bout tomorrow, 'cause you were the same as me, but on your knees._" Demyx grinned at Axel's singing and signalled Roxas in with a half-turn and a nod of his head. Axel sang without pause, words coming to him almost instantly and stringing themselves together in a song – he hardly knew where they came from.

"_A thousand other boys could never reach you  
How could I have been the one?  
I saw the world spin beneath you  
And scatter like ice from the spoon  
That was your womb._

_Coming down, the world turned over  
The angels fall without you there.  
I go on as you get colder  
Or are you someone's prayer?_

_You know the lies they always told you  
And the love you never knew  
What's the things they never showed you  
That swallowed the light from the sun?  
Inside your room, yeah_

_Coming down, the world turned over  
And angels fall without you there  
And I go on as you get colder  
Always someone there._

_And there's no time left for losing  
When you stand they fall, yeah…  
Coming down the world turned over  
Angels fall without you there  
And I go on as you get colder  
All because I'm… coming down, the years turn over  
The angels fall without you there  
And I'll go on and I'll lead you home and  
All because I'm, all because I'm -  
And I'll become, what you became to me._"

The song ended, rough and young yet, but they all were satisfied. "Axel, that was amazing!" Demyx gushed, eyes shining. "Where did you get those words from?" Axel smiled, then pointed one finger at his heart. Then he grinned and winked, not wanting to appear too cheesy. "Bravo, lads, bravo!" Saïx intoned blithely. He beamed round at the boys. "One more time, then?"

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Axel drove home happily humming to himself, cigarette dangling from his lips. It was not too late in the evening, around seven, and Axel was exhaustedly satisfied at the effort he and the band had put into fine-tuning their song. It had turned out quite pleasingly, and all involved were quite happy with the result. "Album material. Album material," Saïx had excitedly repeated, over and over, but none seemed to mind, sharing instead in his excitement. Even if Saix _was_ slightly exaggerating,

Pulling into his cramped one-car garage, Axel was only mildly surprised to see that the motion-sensitive porch light outside his front door had switched on. It was a real annoyance to all tenants in the complex, switching on at even the slightest flicker of movement – like a single stray mosquito floating past the sensor. Axel switched off the engine and struggled to free the keys from the ignition, as he always did. They soon relented though, and Axel was free to lock his car and tramp tiredly up the stairs towards his apartment, running one hand through his somewhat sweat-caked hair.

Fatigue gave way to surprise as Axel reached the top of the stairwell and stared down the narrow concrete walkway. There was a large, formless black bundle right infront of his front door, blocking off the way into his apartment. Axel stared on in apprehension, wondering what the hell it could be. Nothing good, he supposed. Cautiously he moved towards it, stepping in short, jerking strides, yet when he stood over it he was still decidedly unenlightened to its substance and origin. He knelt down beside it and was about to move the black folds of material aside when the bundle moaned. Axel jumped back, preparing himself to fight, and succeeded only in falling hard on his ass. "What the fuck is – " the words left his mouth before a sudden, horrible insight dawned on him. Axel crawled forward, took the bundle in both hands and rolled it over.

Marluxia looked up at him through bruised, slitted eyelids. His pale face was splashed with blood and peppered with bruises, a nasty yellow patch blossoming on his chin and a cut over one eyebrow. He tried to smile through swollen lips, with pathetic results. "Hi," he whispered, and broke out into violent, wracking coughs before passing out in Axel's arms.

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Axel woke with soft, cinnamon hair tickling his chin. He sighed, and reached out mentally for the dream he had just awaken from. In his dream, he and Marluxia had been walking down a city street at night towards a bus stop. It was wet, but not raining, and they both wore long coats. Marluxia took Axel's hand and smiled and began to speak, but Axel couldn't hear and he leant closer, closer and Marluxia's voice was being overshadowed out by the droning sound of a warning horn, and then they were kissing and oh, and Axel fell into a hurricane of milk and flower petals, all carressing him and sliding over his skin until he was lost in it all. Axel, back in his bed, smiled to himself and buried his face into Marluxia's hair as sleep claimed him once again. The dream continued. Axel was floating in blissful abandon in the sensuous white and pink cyclone, murmuring Marluxia's name, repeating it over and over until he was shouting it, screaming it, begging to find him. The eye of the storm came and Axel dropped back onto the street and grabbed at the empty air where Marluxia had been. "Goodbye," said a voice in his ear then, and Axel turned and Marluxia's face was right there, all bittersweet smile and sad eyes, and Axel reached out to touch his face but there were too many bruises and he didn't want to hurt him, and then he was far away, miles and miles out on the bitumen and white painted lines, a hulking shape closing in fast. Then Marluxia said, "I love you," and the warning horn sounded again and everything was enveloped in harsh light and screaming tyres.

Axel woke, for the second time, with a shock. He was sweating, the sheets tangled around his legs. Marluxia lay serenely on Axel's chest, hands on the redhead's collarbone for support. Axel sat up slowly, steadying his breathing, and eased the sleeping boy off him. He could sleep for now. Explanations would come later. Axel headed for the shower, standing under the stinging needles of hot water for twenty minutes. In his head, he mulled over the dream. It had disturbed him.

Axel had been awake for less than an hour when Marluxia joined him in the living room, wearing only Axel's scraggy old navy-blue trackpants, hitched up about his knees. He sat down beside Axel on the couch, silently accepting the last mouthfuls of Axel's coffee and the few remaining drags of his cigarette. Axel spoke first. "Do you want a shower?"  
Marluxia nodded. "Yeah… that would be good… if it's not too much trouble… thanks."  
"Down the hall, on the left, across from my room."  
"…I know."  
Axel watched Marluxia exit the room, and noticed a slight limp he'd not seen previously, as well as a deep purple bruise on his lower back and rope burn circling both wrists, and he felt sorrowful and, for some reason, fiercely protective. He wondered why Marluxia had come to _him_.

Axel was reading when Marluxia re-entered the room, stopping to stand uncomfortably in the doorway. Axel hurriedly removed his reading glasses and looked up expectantly at the other boy. "I…" Marluxia looked Axel in the eye as he began to talk, and, with one word, lost his nerve and lapsed back into staring at his feet. "Some… some dealings went… astray last night." He shifted uneasily. "Things got out of hand… words were spoken… actions were undertaken." Subconsciously, he rubbed the bands of raw skin around his wrists, then looked up at Axel suddenly with wide, imploring eyes. "Thankyou," he whispered, then bowed his head, hands clasped. "I feel safe with you."

There was no hesitation. Axel breached the distance between them with a single bound, cupped Marluxia's face in his hands and pressed their mouths together in a fierce, desperate kiss. Marluxia responded immediately, whimpering softly into Axel's kiss and sliding his hands over Axel's chest and shoulders. Axel pulled the other boy even closer, one hand cradling his head and the other firmly wrapped around his waist. Then he parted Marluxia's lips with his tongue and delved inside, exploring every intricacy of the delicious mouth with his tongue, sucking on his bottom lip teasingly, eliciting a moan from the other boy.

Axel backed Marluxia into the hallway, rough hands pushing at the pink-haired boy's hips. They met the wall with a resounding thud, and Marluxia opened his mouth to voice the pain, but it was quickly forgotten as Axel again closed his mouth over Marluxia's and slid his hands down the waist of Marluxia's pants, steering him into the bedroom. They fell onto the bed in a frenzied heap, Axel on top of the smaller boy, kissing and nipping and sucking every available surface on the pale planes of Marluxia's torso. Marluxia gave a strange, half-strangled sound as Axel's long fingers grazed past unseen bruises, but relaxed again into his touch as the redhead skilfully slid the loose pants down Marluxia's slim white legs.

Flushed all over, Marluxia pulled Axel's face back to his and kissed him deeply, his legs entwining with Axel's. The redhead broke away from the kiss, to Marluxia's annoyance, and continued to tease him, rolling the sensitive rosebud nipples in his mouth like plump raisins as he unbuckled his own pants and stripped them off, trying to maintain a certain amount of dignity. Marluxia was making the most enticing mewling noises at Axel's ministrations, and both had almost painfully large erections.

Axel stroked Marluxia's sides lovingly, panting, then flipped him gently onto his back. He reached clumsily forwards and opened the drawer of his nightstand, taking out a small bottle of lube, and, on second thoughts, a condom. Hastily he rolled on the rubber and applied the lubricant, his length twitching impatiently at the gentle strokes. Axel threw the bottle aside and shifted himself between Marluxia's thighs, taking him by the hips. Breathing heavily, he leant forward and nipped Marluxia's shoulder as he entered him, rather too roughly, the familiar tightness enveloping him. Marluxia cried out, a sweet mixture of pleasure and pain, and Axel threw off any restraint and began to thrust into Marluxia in a frenzy. Marluxia was grinding his face into the pillows, a flush on his cheeks, and with every thrust he cried out for more. Axel took Marluxia's cock in one hand, and began to stroke him, timing his thrusts with his hand movements.

_I can't last much longer…_ Axel's breathing became erratic, faster, he was reaching climax. Marluxia stiffened suddenly, his body began to spasm in the throes of orgasm, his fingers curling the bedsheets. "Ah – Axel!" he whimpered, and shuddered once, twice, and Axel followed suit – yelling Marluxia's name, distorted in blissful abandon as he came.


	6. Whiterabbit Cafe

Guess whaaaat everyone? I'm actually alive, and I have actually been writing. So sorry for not writing sooner, I'm a very impatient person and almost never finish fanfictions I begin. But I came back to this one, as you can see. I have an idea of where my story is going - infact, I've already written the final chapter.. All that remains to do is tie up the loose ends and stuff the story full of sex, angst, drugs, tragedy, and anything else i can fit in. :)

Thanks to everyone who's read, faved, alerted, and reviewed, et cetera:D

I may not have time for more writing for a month or so, because I have schoolwork and I'm going to Japaaaaan in exactly 2 weeks, so I'll be way too busy being tired and stalking Miyavi. XD 

Anyway, enough already.

**NOTICE: THIS IS A FLASHBACK CHAPTER. I did not just suddenly decide to make them all go back to highschool again. FLASHBAAAAACK! (Thanks for the suggestion, ****Aabalany**

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"Oi, there he is - !"  
"Do it now Axel, do it!"  
"I dare you, c'mon Ax, oi, fuckin' do it!"

Their loud urgings changed into hushed giggles and harsh snickering, and they all mutely motioned for him to fulfill his dare, laughter stifled by hands clamped over their faces. Axel grinned wickedly and winked at them, revelling in the attention they gave him. Demyx was at his elbow - his stature being not much higher than that - bright-eyed and mischevious, as he always had been. "Do you _dare_ me?" Axel mouthed, although in his mind the decision had already been made. They all nodded vigourously, glancing over at the frail, pink-haired boy bent over his textbooks in the shade of a tree, and once again attempted not to laugh out loud.

Axel straightened up to his full height and thrust out his chest importantly, then he winked again, ran one hand through his hair and sauntered over to the lone boy under the tree.

The boy did not look up at Axel's approach: if anything, he seemed to shrink further into the shade, his pale, skeletal hands clutching the fraying edges of his second-hand history textbook even more tightly. "What'cha reading?" Axel asked cheekily, leaning against the bole of the tree and surveying the other boy. The boy's head jerked in surprise and he stared up at Axel with widened eyes.

"I - um - history," said the boy, and flushed slightly. Axel was momentarily surprised by the boy's soft voice, which was gentle without being overly feminine or, worse, broken and irritating like a badly-oiled hinge.  
"History, huh? I don't do it, is it interesting?" Axel said, flashing the boy a charming grin.  
"Yes, I - I suppose..." the boy looked as though he was about to say more, but thought better of it and then, unsure of what to do, suddenly appeared to have become very interested in the ant crawling along his shoe.

"Yeah... so like... what do you learn about?" Axel said, widening his eyes in a convincing performance of interestedness that reflected his solid A+ record in drama class.

"Oh, uh... not much really... I mean, I do modern history so we learn about stuff that happened this century - oh, I mean last century... you know. I mean, we prettymuch do the 20th and 21st centuries... so far we've done the obvious like world war one and two... and right now we're looking at communism in democratic countries and - "

"Oh, yeah, that sounds really cool," Axel interrupted, "so anyway, look, I was just thinking, you seem really interesting and stuff, so do you wanna go on a date sometime?"

" - the latest work of the United Nations," the boy finished slowly, looking at Axel with an expression of incredulity shot through with suspicion plastered on his pale face.

An awkward silence ensued, which was really more of a slight awkward pause, before Axel said, "So, how 'bout it?" and the boy's face drained of colour, then flushed pink.

"I - but - "  
Axel pouted at him. "What, you don't find me attractive?"  
The boy flushed a deeper hue and turned away. "No, it's not that," he muttered.  
"So you're what... heterosexual? Is that it?" Axel pressed, digging the toe of his boot into the ground, pretending to be hurt.

"No - but - well - "  
"Yes?"

"You've - you've never even talked to me before today," the boy said exasperatedly, still not meeting his eyes.

"Then I guess today's your lucky day," Axel grinned. He leant down and turned the boy's face towards his. "Marluxia, isn't it?" - the boy nodded - "Well, Marluxia, I have a feeling you and I will be seeing a lot of each other very soon."

As he walked away, Axel called over his shoulder, "I'll see you tonight. Eight o'clock. White Rabbit Cafe, on Lincoln Street, near the bowling alley... got it memorized?"

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_It's late. Too late. He's definitely not coming. Fuck, why did I come here? I could be home studying. I _should_ be home studying. I should be... oh, this is stupid, why the hell did I even turn up?_

Marluxia wrapped his arms closer around himself and stamped his feet on the crust of snow along the pavement, trying to remember what it was like to have feeling in his legs. His face, pale as the snow, felt raw and tender through the thickly knitted white scarf wrapped about his lower face and neck, and his fur-lined hood had done little to keep heat inside his body. He stood leaning against the wall outside the White Rabbit Cafe; his general antisocial tendencies just outweighing the need to get out of the cold. He cursed his stupidity. It was already ten past eight o'clock, ten minutes after Axel had arranged for them to meet. And the wicked red-head was nowhere in sight.

Marluxia gave himself a mental kick in the arse for being so stupid, and turned shivering to leave.

"Going somewhere?"

Marluxia turned - Axel had arrived. He was dressed in surprisingly light clothing for the weather, wearing tight-fitting black jeans and a long black overcoat with a fur-lined hood, seemingly the only warm thing he had on. A cigarette dangled precariously between his lips, and smoke curled from his mouth and nose to frost in the chill air. Marluxia felt a sense of relief wash over him, but it was closely chased away by a sense of regret. _Oh god, what now? Why did I even come in the first place? What does he want from me? Am I going to have to sit and talk to him now? Jesus..._

Axel moved closer, a sly grin on his face. Even at two feet Marluxia could feel the warmth radiating from him, and as he lowered his eyes to avoid Axel's intense gaze, he saw that the snow around Axel's feet had melted into a puddle of grey slush. Axel was close now, too close, close enough for Marluxia to feel the spikes of Axel's hair brushing his forehead. Panic stirred in him, adrenaline coursed through his veins, and blood rushed from his head to make him dizzy. "Hey, Marlu-chan," Axel said, his voice now little more than a hoarse growl. And he pinned the smaller boy against the wall, Marluxia's back thumping into the cold brick, the layers of clothing doing little to cushion the blow. "Do you wanna play a game?" Axel murmured, his hand snaking down 'neath the waistband of Marluxia's pants, breath hot on his face - but all Marluxia could feel now was cold, the cold enveloped him suddenly, snaking up his arms and constricting his throat, like the childhood blankets on his bed that ensared him when he woke from a dizzying nightmare and writhed crazily to free himself from their confines.

The street disappeared, everything blurred and warped and reconstructed itself, and Axel was gone but there was another man, dark-haired and pale-eyed, his burly arms and barrel chest blocking the rest of Marluxia's vision. He was thirteen years old again, trapped and terrified, his body not even small enough for him to twist away. "I want to play a game," said the man, and his eyes burnt wickedly and his tongue was a serpent spitting poison into the boy's soft young mouth, burning him from the inside out. "No," Marluxia moaned, and he struggled, but he was too weak, too weak! And his feet were leaden and his knees were jellied and he fell into a heap, curling up into the smallest shape possible, fingers grasping desperately at his back for the umbilical cord, the safety line, but his hands came away bloody. It was his own blood, and it burnt his hands into blisters, and his eyes were swollen and he couldn't see, but there was a monster under his bed and it was breathing fire in his face and he sobbed helplessly, everything blurring between the slits of his eyelids.

Then the pressure relaxed, and Marluxia sobbed and gabbled incoherently, his vision swimming with tears, back in the present - he then staggered two feet, retched, and threw up into the snow-filled gutter, on his knees in the snow and ice. He grabbed at his throat, pulled the scarf away and threw it into the street where it was snatched by a gust of wind and carried away - and he felt a pang of regret, because his mother had made it for him - but it was gone, and so were his demons.

Axel was standing with his back to the wall, watching him, idly puffing on his cigarette and watching Marluxia disinterestedly.

"The fuck is your problem?"

The words cut through Marluxia like the icy wind that had borne them to him. He remained on his knees, heaving and shaking, despair replacing the blood in his veins. Axel dropped his cigarette to the ground and crushed it carelessly beneath his heel, then stepped past Marluxia onto the road, laughing softly to himself. A car roared into life several yards away, and, tyres squealing, raced along the icy street and pulled up beside Axel. The small car was full but for one space, and all inside were laughing cruelly. Axel leapt into the car, and the driver revved the engine, headlights flaring. But before the car pulled away, a window was hastily rolled down and many pairs of hands emerged, dousing Marluxia with icy water. They pulled away, the roar of their laughter mingling with the roar of the engine, leaving Marluxia gasping and shivering in the gutter.

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**Author's note:** If you didn't read the note at the beginning, please note that this is a **flashback chapter**, from Axel & Marluxia's highschool days (Thanks again for the suggestion, **Aabalany**). I'll get back to the main storyline in the next chapter, or the one after that, promise.

Anyway aha, the plot thickens! I didn't expect Axel to be so cruel and evil, but he seems to have a mind of his own, in this chapter especially. Poor Marlu. :c

Thanks for reading. :)


	7. Ultraviolet

His earring was gone.

That was the first thing Axel noticed when he stepped out of the shower before the steam-shrouded bathroom mirror. Immediately, his hand flew to his earlobe, as if the earring was merely invisible and would be revealed with a touch of his fingers. Not so. It was gone, that cherished trinket of intricately wrought silver. The one he had worn since he was a lad of thirteen. The one that had passed from the hands of his dying grandfather, thin and shaking and knotted with blue veins, into his own.

"Oh no, no, god damn it, _no_!" Axel bawled, slamming a fist onto the counter top. He felt the pang of its loss sharply, an emotion soon supressed by a rising tide of anger. He threw his towel away from him forcefully and began to angrily search his small bathroom for the missing earring. Not finding it, he snarled with frustration and stormed naked into his bedroom, furiously tearing the room apart in his search. He shook out his sheets, tore the pillows from their cases and thrust his hands into them, searched every inch of floor space and even the places he was most unlikely to find it - in the pages of books, in the bottom of desk drawers. Like the bathroom, it yielded nothing.

By the time he had painstakingly searched the house from top to bottom and end to end, he was hot, dusty and in an inplacable rage. Sitting on one of his shitty vinyl couches with his head between his hands, he racked his brains to try and think where it could be. Would Marluxia know?

Marluxia was out, working supposedly. _Though god knows how many strip clubs would actually operate during the day_, Axel thought somewhat bitterly. It had been more than two weeks since he had come home from band practice to find Marluxia crumpled on his doorstep, badly beaten. Although Axel had pressed him for information, Marluxia refused to give any reason as to why he had been so assaulted; merely saying that some dealings had gone wrong. _Herion dealings_, Axel scowled to himself.

Marluxia had unofficially moved into Axel's flat after that night. Neither of them brought up the topic; it was an assumed arrangement that seemed to work well for both of them. Axel had mixed feelings about living with Marluxia. Their strange relationship had deepened, and Axel sometimes found he had stilled unnoticed in the midst of some activity, thoughts of the slight, quiet boy dancing through his head. Sometimes it frightened him, just how fast they had come together, and the fact that their relationship was something he could not just brush off or set aside like he had in the past with other people.

On the other hand, the closer he and Marluxia became, the more Axel came to resent Marluxia's shady habits. He had seen Marluxia shooting heroin into his veins three times in total. Unlike the first time he had observed this ritual, he now stood at the living room doorway in stoic silence, although making his presence known, when Marluxia indulged in the drug. Neither he nor Marluxia made any mention of it, but Axel knew the other boy felt disapproval radiating from him, as he refused to meet Axel's eyes for a lengthy period of time afterwards. Axel thought cigarettes were a weakness, alcohol a relaxer, and pot an indulgence. He did not approve of heroin.

Not to mention the fact that Marluxia was working as a stripper. This grated on Axel's nerves every time he thought of it. He had never really been prone to jealousy - never having exactly liked anyone enough to care. But the thought of Marluxia's pale form twining around a pole under the leering eyes of strip-club customers made him grind his teeth. He had resolved to speak to Marluxia about both of these issues, but had not yet found the right time.

Suddenly a thought occurred to him. Disgusted with himself, he tried to push it away, but it only rooted itself more firmly in his mind. Stripping in this town did not pay well; when there were a million strip clubs lining the downtown pleasure district streets, and strippers themselves were a dime a dozen. It certainly did not pay well enough to support an expensive heroin habit. Could Marluxia have stolen Axel's earring to pay for his fix? In the night, while Axel slept in his darkened room next to the pale, ethereal form of his beloved, could those slender fingers, trembling with guilt, have plucked the jewellery from his ear?

Axel snorted, ashamed to be thinking such things about the boy he was so fond of. However, he could not push the niggling completely out of his mind. So he set it aside, and added it to the list of things that he would attempt to talk to Marluxia about.

By the time he had made another trip to the shower to wash the dust and sweat from himself, it was time for Axel to leave for band practice. This brightened him somewhat. Lately inspiration had been flowing from all quarters and they had been getting standing ovations and encores at most of their performances. Saix, the band's manager, had been pushing to get a deal with a local record label. All in the local music scene knew Saix to be a man of great cheer and levity; however, when he was angry, it boded ill for any stupid enough or unlucky enough to be within a 50 metre radius. So far, all the managers and high-ups he had approached had been careful to negotiate with great tact, gently declining until, they said, the band could produce a hit song popular enough to launch their careers.

Axel thought he had just such a song. The lyrics had been shifting and jumbling around in his head for quite a while, but they had only recently sorted themselves into a properly-worded song. He had roughly composed the accompanying music and intended to present it to the band that day.

"Yoo-hoo!"

The sing-song voice was accompanied by a series of raps on Axel's front door. Axel snatched up his keys and wallet and bounded for the door. Opening it, he was greeted by the cheery grin of his best friend Demyx. "Ready to go?" Demyx trilled. Without waiting for a reply he caught up Axel's large hand in his small one and dragged him towards the car. Axel managed to extricate himself long enough to lock his front door, and then was promptly hustled into the passenger seat of Demyx's flamoyant red Mini Coupe.

Axel slumped down into the seat. He hated taking Demyx's car. God forbid he should be seen in it - it just was not manly. He thought fondly of his battered silver Commodore. An Australian import, he had been given the keys unceremoniously when he had gotten his driver's license, a joint Christmas and birthday present for his seventeenth birthday. The old thing had served him well over the years and was still running fine, but in need of repairs for the seatbelts and upholstery.

Demyx started the engine and immediately the deafening screech of pop music snapped out of the speakers, assaulting Axel's ears. He groaned and slumped further down in his seat, a hard thing for a six-foot-three tall person to do. Demyx obligingly turned down the volume slightly.

"So," the blonde man said, arching an eyebrow, "I have not seen my darling Axey-poo around lately. What gives?" he pouted and shot a glance at his red-haired friend. Axel shrugged and looked out of his window.  
"You've seen me," he said evasively. "I've been at band practice every time it's been on."  
"Oh, but as I recall, you were not present for our latest Friday Night Ritual!" Demyx exclaimed, lookingly slightly scandalised. "It was the first time ever, and I must admit it was very strange. Roxas got _so_ drunk, and him and his fake ID got us booted out of the club! Saix chucked such a hissy fit. The man is _such_ a drama queen. You should have _seen_ him," Demyx laughed. "He was roaring at the security guards. Those big Pacific Islanders? Oh my God. I swear they were terrified. They kept saying, 'We don't want no trouble,' and they looked so uncomfortable. Funniest thing ever." Demyx ended his monologue with a laugh and a sigh. He cast another sidelong look at Axel.

"So, Axey..." Demyx trailed off, prompting the other man to speak with a lift of his brows.  
"What?" Axel snapped irritably.  
"Jeez. Settle down. I just wanted to know... how's Marluxia?" he winked. Axel jabbed him in the ribs, eliciting a squeal.  
"I... good. He's fine. He's kind of living with me now," Axel answered hesitantly.  
"Mmhmm?"  
"Yeah... things just worked out that way I guess."

There was a pause, filled in with the unholy screeching of the Backstreet Boys.

Axel hesitated. "Dem?" He asked.  
"Yes, dear?"

"Do you remember... all that stuff we did in high school?"  
"Oh, I remember many things we did in high school," Demyx replied archly, his lips curving.  
"No, I mean, like... the practical jokes and stuff," Axel said, exasperated.  
"Oh, a few, I suppose. Why do you ask?"  
Axel shifted in his seat. "Some of the shit we did... it was really messed up. I mean, do you remember that one kid? What was her name, she had the glasses and always wore that Hello Kitty shirt? Do you remember in year eight when she brought cupcakes to class for her birthday, and we told everyone not to eat them, and to completely reject her? Stuff like that, man. Thinking back on it, it was just so... so messed up. We acted like dickheads."

Demyx tilted his head. "Oh, c'mon, Axey. You can't beat yourself up about stuff like that. We were just kids, y'know? If it wasn't the chick in the Hello Kitty shirt, getting shit from us, it would have been some other kid, getting shit from someone else."

"Still," Axel murmured. He had a vague, shadowy memory of walking down the sidewalk in the snow, approaching a slight, pink-haired boy who stood beneath the sign of a white rabbit wearing a waistcoat... For some reason, the memory made him feel ill. He pushed it away, and saw that Demyx was now pulling into Roxas's driveway.

As they stepped out of the car, the young, blonde-haired Roxas came forward to greet them. "Hey! My parents are out of town for a business meeting. We have the whole house to ourselves, so no noise restrictions need apply today." Both of Roxas's parents worked for a pharmaceutical company, and were often called upon to go on three- or four-day business trips out of state to promote some new medicine or drug. Roxas grinned and lead them into the spacious garage, where the amplifiers and drum kit had already been set up. Saix was reclining in an armchair, flipping through a sheaf of papers and frowning. As the trio entered, he looked up and smiled, showing pointed eye-teeth, and greeted them happily. "Let's get straight into it, boys!" he grinned. "Shall we start with _The Wanderer_?"

"Wait," Axel bade them. He rummaged in his pockets and brought forth a folded sheet of music. "I have a song. Pretty rough still, but I think it's gonna be awesome. Can we try that first?"

As the other band members scanned the music with furrowed brows, Axel picked up Roxas's bass guitar and twanged its strings to check if it was in tune. Then he mentally ran through the lyrics to his new song, and its rhythm and timing. "Hey, this is awesome, man," Roxas exclaimed. He set the music to one side and sat down before his drums, taking up the sticks and beginning to tap out a rhythm. Demyx looked up from the guitar score and winked at Axel. "Count us in, Axey!"

"_He is a wave and he's breaking,  
He's a problem to solve.  
And in that cirlce he's making,  
I will always revolve.  
And on his sight, these eyes depend -  
Invisible and indivisible!_

That fire you ignited  
Good, bad and undecided  
Burns when I stand beside it  
Your light is ultraviolet!  
Visions so insane

_Travel unravelling through my brain  
Cold when I am denied it  
Your light is ultraviolet - ultraviolet!_

_Now is a phase and it's changing  
It's rotating us all  
Thought we're safe, but we're dangling  
And it's too far to survive the fall!  
And this I know - it will not bend  
Invisible and indivisible!_

That fire you ignited

_Good, bad and undecided  
Burns when I stand beside it  
Your light is ultraviolet!  
Visions so insane_

_Travel unravelling through my brain  
Cold when I am denied it  
Your light is ultraviolet - ultraviolet!_"

As soon as the song was finished, Saix leapt to his feet and applauded. "By God, I think we've done it! Record deal, here we come!"

* * *

NB: Holy crap - two years a long enough wait for ya? Oops. Hopefully I will continue to see this story through to the end. Sorry that this chapter ain't the best, it's more of a catch-up than anything. The song is "Ultraviolet" by the Stiff Dylans, only "she/her" has been changed to "he/his". Thank you for reading and I offer one thousand apologies for the wait lol.


	8. The Only Exception

Marluxia looked drawn and tired as he arrived home from work. It was late, and he winced as the spare key grated rustily inside the lock, trying to muffle the sounds so as not to disturb Axel from sleep.

He needn't have bothered. Axel the night owl was very much awake, reclining on one of his ugly vinyl couches and flipping through a _Rolling Stone _magazine. Axel looked up as Marluxia entered, appraising him over the rims of his reading glasses with a cool green gaze.

"Hey," Marluxia greeted him. "Sorry. Work was busy, I had so many customers asking for..." he trailed off self-consciously and lowered his head slightly, as if in apology. Without further ado, Axel launched into his questioning. "My earring. Did you take it?"

Marluxia looked startled. "Earring? What earring?"

"My earring," Axel said impatiently. "I just said that. _My_ earring. Mine. The one I always wear. The silver one." He tried unsuccesfully to smooth the scowl from his face and keep the accusation out of his voice. "Have you seen it? Did you take it?"

"I... no. Why would I take it?"

"Christ, I don't know! To pay for your bloody heroin habit?"

"No! I didn't take your earring." Marluxia's rather frightened expression gave way to one of annoyance. "How could I have taken it if you always wear it? How could you even ask me that?"

Axel threw up his hands in frustration. "I've already said why. To pay for your bloody drug habits! Just tell me if you took it. Or... just give it back. Now. And we'll forget that this ever happened."

Marluxia shook his head stubbornly. "I told you, I did not steal your earring."

"Well - where the hell is it? Do you think the magical earring pixies snuck into my room at night and gave the earring legs? Do you think it just _jumped_ out of my ear and _ran_ away? God damn it Marluxia, if you're hiding something from me, you better spit it out now! My dead grandfather gave me that earring, it's all I have left of him!"

Marluxia, suddenly, went white as all colour drained from his face. "Wait - what did it look like?" he begged. Axel, startled at the sudden change in subject, was momentarily lost for words. He described it, not as articulately as he would have liked: "It was, like, a spiky, silver... upside-down-tear-drop thing. Lots of little silver... arms... all crossing and twining over themselves. In the middle was some weird symbol."

Marluxia groaned and sank down onto the couch, his hands coming up to cover his face. "I found it on the floor in your car," he whispered from behind his hands. "I didn't know it was so important to you, I swear, or - "

Axel had a momentary flashback of himself headbanging violently to Mindless Self Indulgence on the way to band practice several days ago. A smile of amusement almost touched his lips before the reality of the situation reared up its ugly head and claimed his attention. "What did you do with it?" He demanded coldly.

Marluxia lowered his hands and his regret-stricken eyes met Axel's. "I gave it to my dealer as collateral," he said in a low voice. "Axel, I'm - "

Axel let out a roar and leapt to his feet, fists clenched. "God fucking damn it!" he bellowed, and aimed a staggering kick at the unnocupied couch, whose frame quivered violently under the blow. Breathing heavily, he raised his hands to massage his temples, and the vein throbbing angrily in his forehead.

Marluxia had shrunk back into his couch, drawing his knees up to his chest and staring at Axel with wide, frightened eyes. Axel rounded on him, black rage writ in every line of his face. "How much?" he demanded.

"F-four, five hundred at most," Marluxia gabbled. "Axel, I'm sorry, I'm sorry - "  
With an incoherent exclamation, Axel snatched his wallet up from the coffee table and withdrew a wad of bills, throwing them at Marluxia so they scattered over the couch and floor.

"I want it back. Do you understand me? I want it _back_."

Marluxia noddeed vehemently in acquiescence, but Axel had turned away and was pacing a turn around the living room, one hand holding back his spiky hair. Suddenly he turned and advanced on Marluxia once more. "And I want you to stop. Do you hear me?" he growled in a low voice. "You quit that _filthy_ goddamn drug or _I_ quit _you_."

Tears of fear pooled in Marluxia's eyes but he nodded mutely. His anger spent, Axel suddenly deflated. He gestured to the bills scattered over the living room. "There's enough there for you to stop working for a while. Ten days, a fortnight at most," he said gruffly.

Something twisted inside Marluxia's heart. "I'm not a whore," he said softly.

Axel crossed his arms. "No. You're not. What do you think that money's for?" he demanded. "So you can stay in the house while your body purges itself of that drug. Damn it, Marluxia," he said, exasperatedly. "Don't you get it? I love you." He laughed bitterly. "You're my only exception."

Axel turned away. "I am going to bed. Good night."

An hour later, when Marluxia crawled into bed beside the sleeping redhead, he clasped his arms about Axel tightly and curved his small body againt the long, lean one. "I love you too," he murmured.

* * *

_When I was younger I saw  
My daddy cry, and curse at the wind.  
He broke his own heart and I watched  
As he tried to reassemble it  
And my mama swore that she would  
Never let herself forget  
And that was the day that I promised  
I'd never sing of love if it does not exist  
But darling, you are the only exception  
You are the only exception  
You are the only exception._

_Well maybe I know somewhere, deep in my soul  
That love never lasts  
And we've got to find other ways  
To make it alone, and keep a straight face  
And I've always lived like this,_

_Keeping a comfortable distance  
And up until now I had sworn to myself  
That I'm content with loneliness  
Because none of it was ever worth the risk  
Well you are the only exception  
You are the only exception  
You are the only exception  
You are the only exception.  
_

_I've got a tight grip on reality but I can't  
Let go of what's in front of me here  
I know you're leaving in the morning when you wake up  
Leave me with some kind of proof it's not a dream_

You are the only exception  
You are the only exception  
You are the only exception  
And I'm on my way to believing

* * *

NB: Another short-ish one, sorry. The song is 'The Only Exception' by Paramore. Also, I would like to thank every one who has read and reviewed Further. For you guys, I'll finish it, no matter how long it takes. :)


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